Other items in today’s column include:
*Temple Emanu-El Celebrates Chanukah with Queer and Trans Nuns
*L’Chaim San Diego Profiles Rain Pryor
*Jewish communal leaders debate propriety of canceling Al-Marayati appearance on panel
*A special palm tree grows at Technion
SAN DIEGO — City Council President Dr. Jennifer Campbell solidified her control over City Council business by appointing herself and the four councilmembers who supported her for president against Councilwoman Monica Montgomery Steppe to key committee positions.
The five councilmembers who voted for her now are the exact same membership of the Rules Committee, which according to the City of San Diego’s website, has responsibility for the “charter, permanent rules of council, open government, elections and ballot measures, annexations, boards and commissions, council initiated matters, communications, customer service and public outreach.”
Besides Campbell, who will chair the committee, other members include Raul Campillo, Stephen Whitburn, Marni von Wilpert, and Chris Cate.
Campbell appointed her opponent, Monica Montgomery Steppe, to serve as the chair of the Public Safety & Services Committee, but named three members of her coalition as the other members of that committee: Campillo, Whitburn, and von Wilpert.
Whitburn was appointed to the ceremonial post of president pro tempore of the council, meaning he will preside when Campbell is absent, and also as chair of the Land Use & Housing Committee, where he will be joined by three councilmembers who supported Montgomery Steppe: Sean Elo-Rivera, Joe LaCava and Vivian Moreno.
Campillo was appointed as chairman of the Economic & Intergovernmental Relations Committee, on which he will be joined by Cate, Moreno, and Elo-Rivera.
Cate was assigned the chairmanship of the Budget & Government Efficiency Committee, on which he will be joined by Montgomery Steppe, Whitburn and Campillo.
Von Wilpert was appointed as chair of the Active Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, with the other members being La Cava, Montgomery Steppe, and Elo-Rivera.
Montgomery Steppe’s coalition was also awarded some chairmanships:
Elo-Rivera will chair the Environment Committee, which also will include von Wilpert, La Cava, and Cate.
Moreno will chair the Audit Committee, which will include La Cava, and three citizen members from outside the City Council: Stewart Halpern, Toufic Tabshouri, and Ricardo Valdivia.
LaCava was the only council member who did not receive a chairmanship.
Meanwhile Mayor Todd Gloria announced his appointments to important external bodies. He and Campbell will serve on the San Diego Association of Governments, known popularly as SANDAG, which in conjunction with representatives from other cities and the county Board of Supervisors, plans regional projects.
Gloria appointed himself and three City Councilmembers to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority: Montgomery Steppe, Elo-Rivera, and Moreno.
Two spots on the Mission Trails Regional Task Force were filled by Campillo and LaCava. Moreno was named to the Otay Mesa Regional Park policy Committee, and a Los Pensaquitos Canyon Preserve Committee drew appointees von Wilpert and Cate.
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Temple Emanu-El Celebrates Chanukah with Queer and Trans Nuns
Temple Emanu-El Celebrated Chanukah on Tuesday night with The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, described on its website as a “leading edge Order of queer and trans nuns. We believe all people have a right to express their unique joy and beauty.
In welcoming members of the organization, some of whom were dressed in drag, Rabbi Devorah Marcus explained during the gathering over Zoom that whereas candles in the chanukiah are placed from right to left, they are lit in reverse order, that is from left to right.
Rabbi Marcus explained: “You always fill in your chanukiah from right to left because that is the same way that the moon turns. But you light it from left to right because the great sage Hillel said we should always practice a culture of welcoming newcomers and welcoming outsiders and welcoming strangers, and so we always welcome the newest candle first. It is a reminder to ourselves that part of what makes us a sacred and holy community are people that embrace others and welcome newcomers.”
The Sisters of Perpetual indulgence website says, “Since our first appearance in San Francisco on Easter Sunday, 1979, the Sisters have devoted ourselves to community service, ministry and outreach to those on the edges, and to promoting human rights, respect for diversity and spiritual enlightenment. We use humor and irreverent wit to expose the forces of bigotry, complacency and guilt that chain the human spirit.”
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L’Chaim San Diego Profiles Rain Pryor
Rain Pryor, daughter of comedian Richard Pryor and Shelley Bonis, is beautifully profiled in a L’Chaim San Diego Magazine cover story this month by Elisa Einhorn. Raised primarily by her maternal Jewish grandparents, Herb & Bunny Bonis, Pryor today is a stand-up comedian who entertains audiences with “Fried Chicken and Latkes” stories about growing up Black and Jewish. Pryor will be the featured speaker at the Jewish Federation of San Diego’s Feb. 28″Options” event, which typically brings hundreds of Jewish women together for community fundraising. Because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, this meeting will be a Zoom event. Co-chairs are Stacie Bresler-Reinstein, Judi Gottschalk, and Carla Modiano. Ticketing information is available via this website.
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JINSA Criticizes Bernie Sanders’ Stance on Israel
In Washington D.C., the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) said it “opposes calls from Bernie Sanders and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party to condition U.S. defense assistance on Israeli policy toward the Palestinians and calls on U.S. officials, policymakers, and particularly Democratic party leaders to clearly make the case that aid to Israel is critical to both protecting U.S. national security interests and to creating the conditions that might enable peace.”
Preventing war with Iran, by keeping Israel strong, would “protect Palestinians and Israelis alike,” JINSA said.
The group made the following recommendations:
- Democrats should prioritize engaging with progressives to counter hostility toward military aid to Israel and to clarify its benefits for Palestinians.
- Congress should convene hearings underscoring the role of Israel’s qualitative military edge (QME) in protecting U.S. interests.
- Congress should insert clear justification and explanatory language in future authorizing legislation.
- Congressional leadership, especially Democratic members, should issue statements of policy, resolutions and public letters supporting the U.S. commitment to Israel’s QME and showing how defense assistance to Israel can reduce conflict with the Palestinians.
- The White House and the State and Defense departments should issue public statements laying out how Israel’s QME serves America’s vital national security objectives, and how U.S. defense assistance can enable Israel to take strategic risks in pursuit of a comprehensive peace agreement with the Palestinians.
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Jewish communal leaders debate propriety of canceling Al-Marayati appearance on panel
Moshe Phillips, national director of the U.S. division of Herut North America, hailed the disinvitation to Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Affairs Council, to sit on a Jews United for Democracy panel in New York City on the subject, “After Four Years of Division and Bigotry–Now What.” Phillips said Al-Marayati should never have been invited in the first place because he is “himself… a promoter of division, tension and bigotry — Bigotry against Jews that is.”
Phillips wrote, “Comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is standard fare for Al-Marayati. For example, writing in the notoriously anti-Israel magazine Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs in June 1994, Marayati asserted: ‘Just as Hitler forged a conflict between Judaism and Christianity, apologists for Israel crave for Islam to be at odds with both Judaism and Christianity'”
He noted in an Op-Ed article sent to publications around the country, “Let it be noted that the U.S. government, together with 30 other member states of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, uses a definition of anti-Semitism which states unequivocally that ‘Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis’ is anti-Semitic.”
On the other hand, The Forward, which is one of the nation’s leading Jewish publications, carried an OpEd by its editor in chief Judi Rudoren, which stated, in part: “One of the main challenges of being a progressive Jew in America in 2020 is being asked to check our Zionism at the door in order to join conversations or coalitions around civil rights. It happens on college campuses. It happens in Black Lives Matter marches. It hurts.
“So it was particularly upsetting to learn that progressive Jews did this exact thing to a Muslim-American leader on Tuesday, disinviting him from panel of civil-rights giants after he published an OpEd in these pages about how Jewish groups unfairly malign Muslims for their views on the Middle East.
“The panel, conducted Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET, is titled, “After four years of division, tension and bigotry — now what?” Looks like the answer is more tension and bigotry: Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, was de-platformed because he argued that the Anti-Defamation League ‘cannot have it both ways’ regarding his community.
“Al-Marayati praised the ADL for its leadership on civil rights in the OpEd, including standing up against anti-Muslim policies of the Trump administration. But he also said the group has ‘weaponized antisemitism to marginalize those who criticize Israel’ and threatened free speech by trying to criminalize support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.”
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A special palm tree grows at Technion
In Haifa, Technion reports that a palm tree planted by Albert Einstein in 1923 in front of the main building on campus is still standing and thriving. The institution sent these photos of Einstein at Technion in 1923 and of the palm tree today.
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Donald H. Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com